No doubt your inbox has been as full as mine has this week with exciting Black Friday deals from every retailer you’ve ever placed an order with, as well as plenty you haven’t! Let’s face it, we all love paying less than the asking price
and with Christmas just around the corner who can resist? With about a third of us planning to spend an average of £234 over the weekend, there are going to be a lot of satisfied customers come Monday!
But while we can buy material things for a knocked down price, we should beware of thinking that a relationship with God can be obtained in the same way. Writing in 1937 the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned of the danger of ‘cheap grace’ – the idea that one could accept forgiveness from God without changing one’s life. Instead he urged Christians to pursue the ‘costly grace’ that comes from a ‘broken spirit and a contrite heart’. A life which flows from following Jesus whose ‘yoke is easy and burden light’. Perhaps the impotence of so much of today’s church can be explained by spiritually bargain-hunting Christians. Bonhoeffer’s faith cost him his life and all those who follow Christ should be willing to pay the same price.